Upgrading our online chat to provide a better service to help seekers

Our Legal Help Chat has some new features designed to make getting help with legal problems simpler and faster.

We have upgraded our technology to include a digital assistant or chatbot. When you start a chat, it will greet you and ask a series of questions to gather essential information.

This allows our trained staff to help you with your legal issue as soon you are connected to them. This saves you and our staff time so that we can assist you faster.

Importantly, every person who starts a chat will still be helped by a human. Everyone will be connected to a Legal Help staff member.

The questions our digital assistant asks you are the same for every chat. The tool does not use artificial intelligence, think, or learn on its own.

New features

The digital assistant will guide you through the process of identifying what sort of legal matter you’d like help with. We’ve also introduced some features to reduce or prevent you having to repeat information you’ve previously provided to us.

Some of the new features are:

• We will ask you to choose your legal matter from a provided list. If you’re not sure, you can say so.
• You now have the option to share a contact number, although this is not mandatory. If you have contacted Legal Help before we can use your phone number to check your previous calls or chats to us, so you don’t have to tell your story again.
• You still have the option to remain anonymous by choosing not to provide a phone number or email address.
• You will be asked to provide a postcode or your birth year. This information helps us tailor our help to your circumstances.
• Before connecting you to a trained staff member the digital assistant will give you an estimated wait time. This lets you know when one of our staff will be available to help you.

These changes are designed to make our service more responsive to you. We have also updated our Legal Help Chat privacy statement to reflect the new features.

Legal Help Chat will continue to operate from 8 am to 6 pm on Monday to Friday, except public holidays.

Using technology to respond to client needs

The new digital assistant aims to streamline our intake process, making it more efficient for both help seekers and staff.

‘Legal Help Chat has been very popular with help seekers since it was first introduced in 2018,’ said Legal Help Director Jon Cina.

‘We know many people prefer the safety, privacy and convenience of using a chat function, rather than calling our phone line.

‘The changes in this upgrade demonstrate our commitment to keep improving the services we provide help seekers and the ways we provide them,’ said Jon.

We've incorporated feedback from people who use our services, including First Nations people, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and people with disability, to ensure our chatbot reflects and responds to their needs and preferences.

The introduction of the digital assistant also allows us to develop more advanced features over time. This could include more tailored intake questions and links to helpful information. We will also be able to explore ways to direct help seekers to assistance when our service is closed.

More information

Get in touch with Legal Help.